Tonight, Littlest and I attended a talk on
cheesemaking and subsequent tasting hosted by New Seasons and
given by Pat Morford of River's Edge Chèvre. During the talk, Pat
walked us through her process. Because River's Edge is a farmstead
operation, their cheesemaking is subject to more variables - rainfall
and humidity, the types of mold in the air at the time, what the goats
have been eating, and so on - than the big cheesemakers. She once lost
three vats of milk thanks to the goats getting into some skunk cabbage!
A couple of people asked about cheesemaking at home, and she pointed
them in the direction of New England Cheesemaking Supply. I
wrote down a lot of details about cheesemaking, actually, that I can't
really work into this writeup, but suffice it to say that Pat knows her
stuff and she and her family make some damn fine cheese.
Before
I head into our notes on the actual cheeses, I feel compelled to
mention that up until my recent change of palate, I wasn't much of a
cheese fan. I liked some cheeses, usually the mildest and smoothest,
and wasn't really even willing to try anything else. Nowadays, I find
myself much more open to possibilities, and much more able to enjoy a
wide variety.
(Littlest, on the other hand, has always been a
cheese lover. Every year for Christmas we get his grandpa a wedge of
Kaseri and as a wee baby, Littlest munched it with great
delight.)
Anyway, I signed up for this dealie because Littlest has been
jonesing to find a cheese tasting for a while. I'm absolutely glad I
did, mind; I just want y'all to be aware that I'm not any kind of
cheese expert.
So much for the preliminaries -
on to the cheese! The cheeses with * after their names are my
favorites; those with # are Littlest's. His notes (which he took
entirely on his own initiative, I promise - I didn't force him to do
anything) are directly transcribed, except for fixing the spelling
errors. We were provided with water, small bites of bread, rice
crackers, and slices of apple (I think they may have been Galas) to
taste our cheese with.
Frangelico Hazelnut Torte*
- I want to marry this stuff, or at the very least, buy a large tub of
it and eat it with a spoon. Imagine a sweet, creamy hazelnut cheesecake
with crushed hazelnuts on top. Imagine that there is no crust. Imagine
that it's got just a little cheese tang to it to keep things
interesting and that you can dip apple slices into it and drown
yourself in sweet cheesy nutty delight. That is this cheese. The only
way it could be even better is if it were delivered by hot naked men
who would let you eat it off their bodies.
Littlest Sez: Sweet.
Bad by the spoonful. Like with bread. (He's surprisingly blasé about
sweets for a kid his age, and I think that's why he didn't care too
much for this one.)
Up In Smoke*#
- This soft cheese, which isn't aged, is smooth, dry, and tastes like
fall. It tastes like the historical re-enactments Mister and I used to
go to, like campfires and the tang in the air from a blacksmith's
forge. It tastes like scuffing through dry leaves on a chilly - oh,
fine, spoil my poetic flights of fancy. If you must
have a prosaic description, it tastes like really good sausage, only
made with cheese instead of meat. We ended up taking home some of this
from the New Seasons cheese case.
Littlest Sez: Like it. Very dry, good, smoky.
Siletz River Stone - A crumbly, semisoft cheese that
smelled not only of cheese but pleasingly of fresh water. It was dry,
but creamy, with green peppercorns in it that gave it a lovely fresh
spark and bite. To me it tasted sour and tangy, which I think normal
people call "sharp." I'm not sure about that one, though. Normal people
use lots of words I don't understand, like "appropriate," "social
skills," and "grownup behavior."
Littlest Sez: Dry, creamy, crumbly, spicy.
St. Olga - Named for Pat's mother, who had seven boys and one
girl, St. Olga is a hard cheese that's both smooth and sharp, with a
hint of sweetness and a cheddary undertone. Our sample had been aged
just under six months. The dark-amber rind had a sort of woody taste to
it.
Littlest Sez: Very sharp and hard.
Sunset Bay# - Coated in ashes and mottled a beautiful
green from its mold, this cheese is semisoft and run through with a
bright orange vein of pimentón. Somewhat tangy.
Littlest Sez: Soft, streaky and green. (He said that he would now
rather eat cheese than try to put it into words. I think he was
entering into a blissful cheese-induced stupor by this point.)
Summer Crottin*# - This chèvre is hand-ladled into the forms,
rubbed with white truffle oil, and wrapped with herbs from Pat's front
yard. There's something decadent about eating cheese that's more
pampered than you are. The herbs flavored it beautifully without
overwhelming its own salty, fresh taste. It really does taste like
summer to me, but we've already established that I've got some sort of
weird flavor-season synesthaesia going on here. Littlest had given up
note-writing by this point but he enjoyed this one a lot. He liked the
way it squeaked as he dug his spoon into it, and noted that due to the
dryness he had to smush it around in his mouth before swallowing.
Stinky Cheese - Yeah, you read that right. Pat brought this
as-yet-unnamed hard cheese for us to try. It had a bright orange rind
and despite the strong (but good) aroma, was surprisingly mild in
flavor. It was medium-sharp and smooth; Littlest pronounced it "okay."
All in all, the evening was a huge success. I highly recommend
visiting the River's Edge Chèvre website and reading the
details about these cheeses, all the other wonderful varieties they
make, and their farm in general. If you don't live near a store that
carries their product, you can order directly from the site. And hey,
check your own area for places like River's Edge. I can pretty much
guarantee you'll be glad you did.
Sorcha
